FullReads

It hath been observed that the Giant of Rabelais is sometimes alluded to by Shakespeare: and in his time no translation was extant.–But the Story was in every one’s hand.

In a Letter by one Laneham, or Langham, for the name is written differently, concerning the Entertainment at Killingwoorth Castle, printed 1575, we have a list of the vulgar Romances of the age, “King Arthurz book, Huon of Burdeaus, Friar Rous, Howleglass, and GARGANTUA.” Meres mentions him as equally hurtful to young minds with the Four Sons of Aymon, and the Seven Champions. And John Taylor hath him likewise in his catalogue of Authors, prefixed to Sir Gregory Nonsence.

But to come to a conclusion, I will give you an irrefragable argument that Shakespeare did not understand two very common words in the French and Latin languages.

According to the Articles of agreement between the Conqueror Henry and the King of France, the latter was to stile the former (in the corrected French of the modern Editions) “Nostre tres cher filz Henry Roy d’Angleterre; and in Latin, Praeclarissimus Filius, etc.” “What,” says Dr. Warburton, “is tres cher in French praeclarissimus in Latin! we should read praecarissimus.”–This appears to be exceedingly true; but how came the blunder? It is a typographical one in Holingshed, which Shakespeare copied; but must indisputably have corrected, had he been acquainted with the languages.–“Our said Father, during his life, shall name, call, and write us in French in this maner: Nostre tres chier filz, Henry Roy d’Engleterre–and in Latine in this maner: Praeclarissimus filius noster.” Edit. 1587, p. 574.

To corroborate this instance, let me observe to you, though it be nothing further to the purpose, that another error of the same kind hath been the source of a mistake in an historical passage of our Author; which hath ridiculously troubled the Criticks.

Richard the third harangues his army before the Battle of Bosworth:

Remember whom ye are to cope withal,
A sort of vagabonds, of rascals, runaways–
And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,
Long kept in Britaine at our Mother’s cost,
A milksop, &c.–;

” Our Mother,” Mr. Theobald perceives to be wrong, and Henry was somewhere secreted on the Continent : he reads therefore, and all the Editors after him,

Long kept in
Bretagne
at
his
mother’s cost.

But give me leave to transcribe a few more lines from Holingshed, and you will find at once that Shakespeare had been there before me:–“Ye see further, how a companie of traitors, theeves, outlaws, and runnagates be aiders and partakers of his feat and enterprise.–And to begin with the erle of Richmond, captaine of this rebellion, he is a Welsh milksop–brought up by my Moother’s meanes and mine, like a captive in a close cage, in the court of Francis duke of Britaine.” p. 756.

Holingshed copies this verbatim from his brother chronicler Hall, Edit. 1548, fol. 54; but his Printer hath given us by accident the word Moother instead of Brother ; as it is in the Original, and ought to be in Shakespeare.

I hope, my good Friend, you have by this time acquitted our great Poet of all piratical depredations on the Ancients, and are ready to receive my Conclusion.–He remembered perhaps enough of his school-boy learning to put the Hig
, hag, hog, into the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans; and might pick up in the Writers of the time, or the course of his conversation, a familiar phrase or two of French or Italian: but his Studies were most demonstratively confined to Nature and his own Language.